Minority Games A Complex Systems Project. Going to a concert… But which night to pick? Friday or...

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Minority Games

A Complex Systems Project

Going to a concert…

• But which night to pick? Friday or Saturday?• You want to go on the night with the least

people. So you try and guess which night.• You can base your guess on previous

attendence. But so does everyone else.• This is a minority game.• What happens if the concert is on every

night?

Properties of Minority Games

• Participants try to pick the least common choice.

• Communication between participants is only through results of previous attempts.

• Each participant thus makes decisions based upon their private strategies and the public history.

• Example: The Stock Market

Why are Minority Games Complex Systems?

• Large numbers of agents, each with their own strategy sets.

• The system adapts to new information each round.

• The history is important.

• The system is frustrated: the more successful a strategy is, the worse it gets.

Choose a Number!

• Pick an integer number between 1 and 10, and try to get the least common number.

• We used the first year physics class as our system.

• The experiment was repeated, but each time the results of the last round were left up.

• 6 rounds were run in total.

Results (First Four Rounds)

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2

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12

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Round 1

0

5

10

15

20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Round 2

0

5

10

15

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Round 3

0

5

10

15

20

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Round4

The jaggedness Parameter (a)a histogram

0

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10number

freq

uen

cy

a=57.4

distribution of variance (a), for Random number choice

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.2

2.17

4.13 6.1

8.07

10.2

12.2

14.1

16.1

18.1

20.2

22.1

24.1

26.1

28.2

30.2

32.1

34.1

36.1

38.2

41.1

a

P(a

)

1 23 4

Our Models

• 100 agents

• Each agent chooses a number according to a strategy

• Calculate histogram of results

• Rank each number from 1-10 based on popularity.

number 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10frequency 8 9 13 6 5 21 6 11 9 12rank 4 6 9 2 1 10 3 7 5 8

Example

• Strategies got 1 point if they led to the least popular number and 0 otherwise.

Model 1distribution of varience

0

200

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1200

14000 7 14 21 28 35 42 49 56 63 70 77 84 91 98

varience

freq

uen

cy

Distribution of Variance

Variance

varience with time

0

20

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0 20 40 60 80 100time (round number)

varie

nce

Variance with Time

Model 1distribution of variance (a), for Random number choice

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.25

0.2 2.17

4.13 6.1 8.07

10.2

12.2

14.1

16.1

18.1

20.2

22.1

24.1

26.1

28.2

30.2

32.1

34.1

36.1

38.2

41.1a

P(a)

distribution of varience

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1400

0 7 14

21

28

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42

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98

varience

freq

uen

cy

Variance

Distribution of VarianceV

aria

nce

What is happening here?

0

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

strategy Mostpopular

2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th Leastpopular

score 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

a=5.6

0

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

Previous round

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What is happening here?

0

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

2

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

0

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 100

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

strategy Mostpopular

2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th 8th 9th Leastpopular

score 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 0 1

Model 2Before the Trial:

• Agents given patience parameter, p.

During the Trial:

•Agents choose a number and stick with it.

•Every p rounds, consider changing.

•When changing, change to best number of previous round.

And then this happened…

Insert alpha distribution.

Distribution of a - model 2

01000

20003000

40005000

6000

0 4 8 12 16 20 24 28 32 36 40 44 48 52

a

Fre

qu

en

cy

distribution of variance (a), for Random number choice

0

0.05

0.1

0.15

0.2

0.250.

2

2.17

4.13 6.

1

8.07

10.2

12.2

14.1

16.1

18.1

20.2

22.1

24.1

26.1

28.2

30.2

32.1

34.1

36.1

38.2

41.1

a

P(a

)

What should have happened…

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What should have happened…

0

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What should have happened…

Time series for a - model 2

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1 3 5 7 9

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Round

a

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1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What went wrong…

02468

101214161820

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10

What went wrong…

What went wrong…

Time Series for a - model 2

0

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2

time

a

Model 3During the Trial:

•Agents choose a number and stick with it.

•Every round, agents have a probability .02 that they will consider changing.

•When changing, change to best number of previous round.

This time it worked!Distribution of a - Model 3

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1 3 5 7 9

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a

Fre

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distribution of variance (a), for Random number choice

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0.05

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0.250.2

2.1

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4.1

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6.1

8.0

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10.2

12.2

14.1

16.1

18.1

20.2

22.1

24.1

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28.2

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32.1

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36.1

38.2

41.1

a

P(a

)

Good for wealth distribution too.Wealth distribution

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4000

4066

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wealth after 50000 rounds

nu

mb

er

of

pe

op

le

Average wealth = 4542

wealth distribution under random choice

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2590

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wealth after 50000 rounds

nu

mb

er o

f p

eop

le

Average wealth =2733

Minority Game Theory

Formalism

2 choice minority game- extension of the El Farol Bar problem

N players, two choices: 0 or 1

Rules: At each turn, every agent chooses a side (0 or 1), those that end up in the minority side, win.

Formalism

• Memory: the bit-string of past winning outcomes.

eg. minority side trial one – 1, trial two -1, trial three – 0, trail four - 1, trial five - 0.

M = {1,1,0,1,0} with length: m = 5.

Strategy Space

History Prediction

000 0

001 0

010 0

100 0

011 1

101 1

110 0

111 1

History Prediction

000 0

001 1

010 1

100 0

011 0

101 1

110 1

111 1

Strategies defined in an abstract way - no psychology.

Strategy s – a ‘card’ with a prediction for each possible past history.

History Prediction

000 1

001 0

010 0

100 1

011 1

101 0

110 0

111 0

eg. Strategy1 Strategy2 Strategy 3 etc…

Minority Game Structure

• Odd number (N) of agents, each given two or more strategies selected at random from the strategy space.

• At each turn, the strategies are evaluated; a point is awarded to each strategy that predicts the correct minority result. The strategy with the highest number of points is chosen for the next turn.

• Evaluated for large number of time steps, for different memory lengths m.

Complex behaviourSavit et al, 1999.

Region 1:

Small number of strategies, crowded behaviour – similar to model 1 of the MCMG.

Region 2:

More available strategies. Able to cooperate to achieve low variance.

Region 3:

Very large strategy space. Less probability of cooperation.

Conclusions• Interesting behaviour

• Possible to do better-than-random

but with abstract/slightly contrived strategies

• Further study to see the stability of better-than-random systems with plausible strategy sets.

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